


Ghost Code

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Fiction, Gen, Honor, Insults, Mentioned Murder, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Revenge, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23653990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: After a music critic seriously insults Napstablook, "ghost code" demands Napstablook's cousins rebalance Napstablook's honor...by whatever means necessary.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Ghost Code

**Link: Review of Napsta Blook’s “Boo Ballad”**

MaddestDummy: HOW DARE HE INSULT MY COUSIN!!!

WWW-MTT: AND MY SOUND MANAGER.

**This post was liked by The Ruins Dummy**

**\---**

Everything started so normally for Wallace Smith, music critic of Ebottville. He woke up, made coffee, had a sip, and read the newspaper.

“Oh, baby, baby, you’re a beep in my heart...” _Another song from the robot pop-star. Ugh._ His face wrinkling, Wallace turned the thing off. The auto-tune and knocking noises in it were so annoying. “You’re abusing my desire for radio serendipity.” he muttered.

As he gently watered his houseplants, the knocking noises came back. Wallace bent over the radio, glaring at it, but it was still off.

Voices. He heard voices. They sounded angry, and made a strange echoing noise.

**\---**

_Thunk_.

Mad Dummy recoiled from slamming their head against the wall, then stood up straight and shouted.

“In case you didn’t hear me the FIRST FIVE TIMES—OPEN UP!”

Three ghosts (or, rather, two dummies and a robot) stood in front of Wallace Smith’s door. In the back, Ruins Dummy stared at the entrance.

Mad Dummy and Mettaton turned around. “Well OF COURSE he’s here! We checked the public records and everything!” Mad Dummy shouted back at Ruins Dummy.

“And _I_ tracked his cell phone.”

“..WHAT?!”

“Oh, I just used a little program called ‘How to Just Stumble Into Meeting Undyne’.”

Ruins Dummy stared emptily in what might have been Mad Dummy’s direction.

“What am I gonna do? What am I GONNA DO? I’m gonna rip out his SOUL, and use it to break the barrier!”

Mettaton waved a hand dismissively. “The barrier was broken months ago.”

“I’m gonna MAKE a barrier, and then BREAK IT with his SOUL!”

“There are _multiple_ reasons that won’t work.”

“Like you have any better ideas.” Mad Dummy grumbled.

Mettaton tilted limply, an arm to his chest. “Why, yes. I _do_ have a good idea. I’m going to publicly humiliate him on my TV show! Millions shall know him as the scoundrel he is!”

Mettaton briefly tilted his body meaningfully at Ruins Dummy, and leaned in closer to Mad Dummy’s face with a hand around his own tiled screen of a face. “After all, slicing a human with a chainsaw is _very_ off-brand right now. And it’s a lot more practical than _someone’s_ elaborate vengeance plan.”

Ruins Dummy’s eyes still faced the threshold.

“WHAT? _Who_ is here? You gotta SPEAK UP—”

“Is here something I can help you with?” said a politely displeased voice.

Mad Dummy jiggled, startled, before stiffening in a professional fashion. There he was, the scoundrel of the hour, with rumpled clothes and a mug of hot coffee in his hand.

Mad Dummy tilted their head, glaring at him with one beady eye, as Mettaton hoisted a camera. Wallace glanced over them all, frowning at the aura of overwhelming... _something_ coming from the dummy in the back.

“Yeah you can!” Mad Dummy exclaimed. “You gotta _pay_ for what you did to my—OUR!—cousin!”

“Who?”

“Don’t you ask WHO!” Their head waggled madly as they hovered three feet above the ground, shedding stuffing in rage. Wallace stood back, eyes wide in shock, before scrunching up his nose and sneezing out clumps of cotton.

“They mean _Napstablook_.” Despite his lack of facial features, Wallace could almost imagine a quiet look of disdain from Mettaton’s calculator-like body. “You do recall how you insulted them, don’t you?”

The man’s face scrunched up. He took a sip of his coffee, as if nothing was wrong, as if two ghosts weren’t threatening to “rip out his SOUL” (whatever that meant) and humiliate him on public television. Mettaton’s long, shapely, egg-frying-hot metal legs tapped impatiently, and Mad Dummy scowled as they hovered in place.

Finally, Wallace spoke.“To be frank...not really. I review the work of a lot of people. And I don’t think it’s necessary to go to such...extremes?....to resolve this problem. Anyway, I always give a fair evaluation of music, so you needn’t—”

“YOU CALL YOURSELF A MUSIC CRITIC?!” Mad Dummy screamed, snout-to-face. “I’VE SEEN MOLDSMALS WITH BETTER MUSICAL TASTES THAN YOU!!”

Wallace looked back, speechless and utterly aghast. Fluff flew around the doorway. Mad Dummy stared at him with beady little eyes, and then frowned. “It’s ‘CAUSE MOLDSMALS ARE DEAF!”

Wallace took a step back, arms stiff, before looking down and noticing...

A piece of cotton in his coffee.

“My shade-grown Arabica....” he muttered absently.

“YOU’RE GOING TO GET A LOT WORSE THAN CELLULOSE-ENRICHED BREAKFAST BEVERAGES! And you know why?! It’s GHOST CODE, you dummy! The honor MUST be rebalanced!”

“May I ask...why?”

“You get insulted, insulted REAL BAD, and your cousins gotta go defend your honor! It's GHOST CODE!”

“Excuse me. I’m not ready to have my... ‘honor rebalanced’ yet.” Wallace said, stepping behind the door.

“You spawn of a—”

Mad Dummy launched themselves at the critic—only to slam into a closed door and slide slowly down.

“It’s for the best. The camera wasn’t on.” Mettaton said, tapping the camera. “I _must_ get this fixed before the _real_ drama starts.”

**\---**

Wallace slid down on the other end of the door. Those ghosts were still talking...“on-brand”, “soundstage manager”, something. The door was too thick to hear their muttering.

 _Thank goodness,_ he thought. _Wouldn’t want those maniacs getting in_ . The music critic tapped at his chin. _Police phone number, police phone number_ ... _ah_!

One digit away from the full number, something floated into his mind…that robot popstar’s super-catchy song. _Oh, baby, baby, you’re a beep in my heart..._ Wallace sighed, shaking his head. The song wouldn’t go away. He pressed his finger to the final digit...

_OH BABY BABY YOU’RE A BEEP IN MY HEART!_

“Fine!” he muttered to that _poorly-timed_ and _hideously catchy_ pop song. “I’ll pull a Frisk and be a sweet goody-two-shoes.”

After a quick search, he found Napstablook’s phone number. It rang three times before the other person picked up.

“Hey, this is Wallace Smith. From earlier.”

“....oh....it’s you...”

“There are some people...claiming to be your cousins. Claiming they want to...rebalance your honor.”

“Oh. Oh no...”

“What?”

“...it’s alright...they’re just trying to rebalance my honor...”

“Okay, so what does that entail?” Wallace said impatiently.

“...”

“What does it entail, Napstablook?”

“Well....you...hurt my feelings really badly, so...”

“Are they going to _kill_ me, Napstablook?”

“...”

Napstablook hung up.

Wallace tensed, stress building up inside his body. With another look at his home’s door, he left the kitchen.

Some research was in order.

**\---**

"...why are you here again? It’s a FAMILY MATTER!”

“And Napstablook is _also_ my soundstage manager. So, it’s definitely on-brand to get revenge for them.”

"Also?! ALSO?! You’re acting like Napstablook is FAMILY!”

“Sssh.” Mad Dummy’s eyes bugged out from the harsh, jarring feedback of the metallic shush to their not-ears.

Mettaton looked around: the time was too early for there to be many witnesses. “Do keep it down. Remember? I’m the ghost who lived next door with Napstablook. I reported on snail races. I've told you this before, darling." “Oh! I FORGOT!”

Mettaton’s arms clenched onto what would be Mad Dummy’s shoulders (had they had arms). _Those arms are the strongest noodles I’ve ever faced,_ Mad Dummy thought. “And I am _trying_ to reveal the sweet, sweet secret identity details on _Friday evening, prime time._ Please don’t spoil the surprise.”

Mettaton stopped clenching Mad Dummy’s not-shoulders and stood back, taking an enormous camera out of the thin air again.

“Why’d you even bring a camera?” Mad Dummy asked.

“For the drama, of course!”

**\---**

_Are ghosts easily offended_?

The results were only lists of ghost jokes, made pre-barrier-breaking.

Wallace tapped his foot, a hand by his chin. He typed in something else.

_Are monsters easily offended?_

Wallace clicked the top link. There was so, so much information about life in the Underground...

 _Oh no. What did I say earlier?_ Wallace checked his blog.

**The Harmonics**

A column by Wallace Smith

"Overall, "Boo Ballad" is so pointless and devoid of any joie de vivre it's rendered bodiless, lifeless dreck. I dust my hands of the whole affair."

Wallace stood up—and flinched from both his sinking feeling and the sudden pain in his head.

_Oh schist._

He gently picked up his rock paperweight that had oh-so-inconveniently fallen from a shelf onto his head.

 _Bodiless. Lifeless. To a_ ghost.

And... _Dust_ . _Monster corpses are piles of dust._

 _Oh no_.

**\---**

_Click click._

Wallace held the phone up to his ear...and Napstablook didn’t pick up.

He grit his teeth, and called again.

“...I’m sorry...I don’t know what to do....”

“Well, I’d rather _stay alive_ , if they’re going to kill me.”

Suddenly, Wallace heard a _whump_ against the door, and ghostly shouts.

“And I’m _pretty sure_ they’re trying to break in.”

He stuck his tongue out and squinted in thought, before putting his hand beneath his chin for good measure.

“What would you do to ‘rebalance’ one of your cousins’ honor?”

“...um...I would...say something mean? I guess...”

Wallace’s face broke out into a silly grin, as relief cascaded over him.

 _I have a plan_.

**\---**

He brought the phone all the way to the door and turned the volume all the way up.

Napstablook’s wavering, ghostly voice emanated from the phone’s speakers. “I...don’t like you. Sorry. I know, that’s too harsh...”

Wallace smacked his forehead.

“A ghost so formidable as you has surely practiced for this _very moment_! A ghost so fearsome surely has a well-prepared SCRIPT!”

“...oh.”

Everyone heard a clicking noise from the phone.

“...so, um...your music criticism...it’s...pointless. And hurts people. You’re...not a nice person.”

“...and...that’s why your wife left you.”

Wallace snorted. _Never had a wife, but good try._

“Oh, I have been brought low!” Wallace exclaimed, an arm postured behind his head in mock shock. “How ever will I recover from this _humiliating defeat!_ ”

Then he opened the door. "As you can see, it is no longer necessary to do...whatever you were going to do. The honor has been rebalanced."

Mettaton turned the camera off. Somehow, despite the robot’s lack of a face, Wallace thought he detected disappointment in his actions. (Probably from the sad sashay of those blisteringly hot legs.) Mad Dummy grumbled incoherently, before they, too, hopped away.

Finally, only Ruins Dummy stared at him.

Wallace stared back.

And Mettaton’s noodle arm pulled them away, so much like a shepherd’s crook pulling away a bad comedian.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was made with the beta-reading help of [Batter-Sempai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batter_sempai/pseuds/batter_sempai) and [Ihasafandom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihasafandom/pseuds/Ihasa).
> 
> The author's Tumblr account: [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/).


End file.
